Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Obama's Do Nothing Iran Policy

By Alan
Caruba

Since the
1979 Iranian revolution in which American diplomats in Tehran were taken
hostage and held for 444 days, the U.S. has had no discernible policy regarding
Iran except to talk endlessly about talking with the handful of ayatollahs that
have run that prison nation ever since their takeover. The Shah was no choir
boy, but he was a reliable ally. Iran has been in a virtual state of war with
the U.S. for 34 years.

When John Kerry replaced Hillary Clinton as our new Secretary of State, Reuters reported
that “Iran’s supreme leader Thursday (Feb 7) strongly rejected proposals for
direct talks with the United States, effectively quashing suggestions for a
breakthrough one-on-one dialogue on the nuclear standoff and potentially other
issues.” Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues to make it clear that
Iran views America as its most detested enemy.

The other
piece of news that day was that the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier,
would not leave for the Persian Gulf as part of the Department of Defense’s
two-carrier policy that has been in effect for the past two years. The decision
was based on the sequestration expected to go into effect that would cut $4
billion over the next six months, the last half of fiscal year 2013.

Secretary Kerry will be a reliable hand puppet for President Obama. Recall that, during
the 2009 protests in the streets of Tehran, Obama offered no support whatever
to the Iranian people, saying instead that he didn’t think the U.S. should
“meddle” in its internal affairs. In effect, he abandoned the Iranians to
further tribulations.

Obama did
the same when he over-ruled his entire state, defense and intelligence
community by refusing to arm the insurgents in Syria, a major ally of Iran. A
Wall Street Journal editorial said, “Syria is showing how doing nothing has
costs of its own. By overruling his advisors, Mr. Obama has prolonged Syria’s
civil war, increased regional instability, and delivered a strategic gift to
Iran, the main enemy of Israel and the U.S.”

Kerry’s
foreign policy as chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee was that
the United States must be “respected” when negotiating with dictators. Iran has
never shown any respect for the U.S. It has, in fact, a long history of
supporting terrorists that have attacked U.S. embassies. It recently sent its
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on a mission to Egypt to establish better
relations since it slid into the control of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Whether it
is Iran, Egypt or anywhere else in the Middle East, Africa and other parts of
the world, under Obama the U.S. has been steadily withdrawing from showing any
overt support for opponents of tyranny whether it was providing missile defense
in Poland or its “lead from behind” approach to efforts to overthrow dictators.

The
timeline of U.S. blather about Iran would be amusing if it were not so deadly
serious. In 2009 Obama said, “My expectation would be that if we can begin
discussions soon, shortly after the Iranian elections, we should have a fairly
good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right
direction…” The only direction Iran has been moving has been the acquisition of
nuclear weapons.

By 2012,
Obama was still talking about discussions with Iran. “We want them to
demonstrate clearly in the actions they propose that they have truly abandoned
any nuclear weapons ambition.”

Every U.S.
administration has sought to open a dialogue with Iran and all have failed. At
some point, one would expect those in office to draw some conclusions from
this. Indeed, all the efforts of the United Nations, particularly that of its
International Atomic Energy Agency, have been complete failures. At some point,
Iran’s nuclear weapons program must be destroyed by military means and one
suspects everyone is hoping Israel will do it for them.

There
appears to be a complete lack of understanding that Iran’s leaders still
operate with a seventh century mentality. One way to grasp this is a recent
news story about the public amputation of a convicted thief’s fingers. It was
broadcast on television. In addition, he had been sentenced to three years in
prison and 99 lashes. A week earlier two men convicted of mugging a man at
knife point were publicly hanged in Tehran from a pair of cranes. Such
punishments are the norm in Iran. As in all authoritarian regimes, such public
punishments keep the population in a state of fear.

A variety
of sanctions on Iran has created internal problems, but has not deterred its
drive for nuclear weapons. Unlike other nations, the factor of irrational
religion-based beliefs makes Iran more dangerous.

In effect,
the Obama administration policy toward Iran is little more than vague talk of
negotiations that will never occur. Financial problems at home have triggered a
drawdown of our ability to project power in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in
the world. If history is a guide, this
is likely to encourage increased Iranian aggression.

Some public flogging might not be a bad idea to introduce here in the States especially for crimes against public safety. It is intolerable that some parks or streets can no longer by visited without fearing for your life. Bring back the public flogging for such crimes or rape. Problem in Muslim countries is that the VICTIM of rape is often beaten...

Alan, as I have repeatedly said, America needs to stop interfering and bring her troops home. Protect YOUR borders and people. Stop importing Muslims into the country. It's only America who loses: troops, reputation and standing. If Iran gets a bomb then what are the going to do? Who are they going to bomb? I think Saudi Arabia has more to worry about than Israel. For if Israel is wiped out, who is going to keep Muslims united in hate? They need Israel more than Israel needs them! It's also time for other countries to spend more of their own money in defending themselves and stop relying on the USA. The USA only got involved in WWII towards the end - they weren't needed before then. It should do the same today!

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.